A Dream Of You
by peraltas
Summary: Hope/Noel. Spans from the ending of FF XIII to the Future is Hope paradox ending.


Hope is fourteen and he sees the world for what it really is. It is a dark and evil place, it is corrupt but it can be changed. His friends had proven that when they gave their lives to hold up a world that hated them for what they were.

Most of the time he stays at home with his dad. And it stays that way until that day, when Rygdea announces a big find at the excavation site in Paddra, it's a small mechanical object placed on a pedestal. No one knows what it does or what it means.

_When he is eight a famine hits his village. His ribs push up against his skin, his breathing is shallow. The only reprieve comes from his grandmother's stories. Stories about the past, stories about villages full of people and food. He drinks it in, feeds on it as sustenance. Five people die during that time, there's morbid talk about eating them but it doesn't come to pass, his grandmother won't allow it. Their saving grace comes from a man in purple lugging a large behemoth._

It's been two years since they'd found the Oracle Drive in Paddra, Hope graduates at the top of his class, in between that Rygdea allows him and his father to walk around Paddra. They poke at the decaying homes and press their hands against the walls as if trying to listen to the history of the place.

Rygdea had explained to Hope that the Oracle Drive recorded the Seeress Yeul's prophecies. They were then used to plan out what needed to be done, during droughts food was stored up. Wars were won through strategic planning, if not then peace treaties were signed.

Despite the time that has passed and as much scientists as his dad can fit on the dig site, none have been able to activate the Oracle Drive. By chance, when both his father and Rygdea are talking on the steps, Hope steals a moment with the machine. He touches the pedestal, all the strange Pulse markings on it. When he reaches to the sphere sitting on top, he feels an aura around it, warm on his palms. He lets his hands rest beside it. Suddenly, the machine emits a strange noise.

The picture is blurry as the machine whirls to life. His father and Rygdea stare at the sky, now covered in a hologram. Hope squints at the image and sees himself, clearly on the projection-and Sazh and Dajh, Serah and Snow. It's all of them when they'd defeated Orphan, even Snow's sombre note of Lightning holding up Cocoon. Something twists inside of him, none of them believed that.

_His first hunting trip goes off without a hitch. Caius leads the able-bodied villagers on the hunt, there is a large pocket of animals still alive and well further in the wildlands. It takes two to three days to reach them. Most of his friends have lost their resolve during the trip. Caius snaps at them. Noel remains silent throughout the rant, he wants to find food. By the end of the expedition, they bag a weak looking Adamantoise. Caius exiles those who did not participate in the hunt. Noel thinks it's a little cruel. _

During the summer months, his father brings him on to the dig site as an observer because he'd found out how to use the Oracle Drive and because there are many other Oracle Drives littering the place, his father needs all the help he can get.

This time, one of the scientists finds one in a small room. He takes out the one that Hope had played and places it in. Hope is entranced by what he sees: a small boy and his grandmother sitting down, the elderly woman reading the boy stories, like his mother used to do when he was younger.

_His grandmother passes away in her sleep. He is devastated at the loss, the remaining villagers haul her body up to the cemetery which has been getting bigger and bigger throughout the years. He wonders how long it would take until the graves eclipse the houses.  
_  
While people in his age group turn to drugs, sex and alcohol to fill in the void, he turns to his studies. The only guilty pleasure he allows himself is watching the boy in the Oracle Drive. His father thinks it's unhealthy for someone his age to have no friends, no girlfriend (or boyfriend).

What his father doesn't understand is that all the company he needs, he seeks through the Oracle Drive. The boy is his obsession, his friend, the constant in his life that will never be taken away. Lightning, Fang, Vanille and Snow. And recently Sazh, he'll not allow anymore causalities on his watch, not as long as he has the power and mind to.  
_  
He gives Yeul a quiet burial close to the village's entrance. For two days he mourns, then he sets his sights on the Oracle Drive, the last one Yeul had made just before she died. It is forbidden but he is only the one left now, so he plays it. It's all grainy and blurry, he can't make out anything for the first few minutes then he hears a voice._

_Yeul's but nothing else shows up. He's confused, her job was to record her visions, why isn't there any images on this one?_

_"Noel, I know you're watching this," she says. "You were always breaking the rules like that."_

_He jumps at the sound._

_"Do something for me, will you?" she continues. "Go to my room, look under my bed. You've already broken one rule, what's a couple more?"_

_He hesitates at her doorway, shifts on his feet: left to right, then right to left. He holds his breath and enters the room. He can see a bare table and the wilting flower he had given her on the tops of her shelf. The bed is close to the window and he reaches underneath it. He feels something hard and round, pulls it out no problem. It looks like an Oracle Drive wrapped up in a piece of paper._

Hope is inducted as the Academy's Director. There are those who make snide remarks behind his back about being a l'Cie, and his father being the founder but it doesn't bother him. Nothing else matters, as long as he can find the people he's lost and restore proper order to the world. Being the Director allows him to have full access to the labs and current research and theories on the Paradoxes, it also gives him the rights to the Excavation site Rygdea had founded four years ago.

_Noel wanders for a few days after he'd discovered Yeul's secret Oracle Drive. Written on the wrapping paper were the words: 'For You.' He'd played it so many times in the beginning trying to decipher what it meant: in it is a silver-haired man and him walking together in a large town it looked like._

His father still visits his office from time to time. He had retired to PalumPolum and still maintains the garden his mother had left behind all those years ago, planting roses, baby's breath and a couple of hardy tulips. Hope always laughs whenever he sees his father in the garden tending to the flowers, with a funny sunhat, gloves and an apron. Rygdea had moved in next door too. A life fit for the founders of the new population on Pulse.

Between the coffee and talk of expanding the site, his father's attentions turn to the tricky subject of the Oracle Drives. Three more had been found all with that boy, Noel but it isn't what Hope expects. His father asks him if he is able to distinguish the time period Noel is from.

Hope hesitates, he doesn't know. It could be from a time that has already passed and Noel could be some ancient entity or it could be from a time that hasn't happened yet. Either way he knows he will never meet Noel.

_Noel is surprised by Serah's home. How big it is, how blue the skies and sea looks compared to his drab home with nothing in it. After the attack they all sit down to eat, everyone crammed under a small hut. There is food for everyone and no one has to starve. They can even get seconds if they want.  
_  
Alyssa is intrusive, oversteps her boundaries whenever she can. But Hope keeps her on because of her paper on the Paradox incident in 5 A.F. The one about a pink-haired girl and a boy in blue clothes with two swords on his back.

_Noel stares at Hope, takes in his uniform, white hair and green eyes. It's him, he knows it's him. The person in the Oracle Drive he is walking with. He had memorized the whole thing even though it was only three seconds long._

Hope is amazed to see Noel in the flesh, like a superhero you'd never thought existed coming to life right in front of you. He tries his best to act as professional as he can, though he is happy to see Serah alive and well, pointing out all the streets of the now dead civilization. Talking about the culture and Lightning as they walk. Unfortunately, it ends too soon as he explains the eclipse, without any hesitation they leave.

He spends the rest of the night looking out for them.

_They meet up with Hope again after they've fixed the timeline, still Noel finds himself staring. He wonders why Yeul had recorded a prophecy with only the two of them in it and he worries if Hope has already seen this Oracle or if it hasn't reached this timeline yet._

What if it comes back as a paradox? But Hope has not said anything on the subject, maybe it's a joke.

Hope greets them as if they had never met before. They haven't, in this timeline at least. He still holds the Oracle Drives close to his heart, and he is just as happy to see the two of them again after so long. They (or Serah) try to explain that they'd already met Hope on another timeline but he can't recall any of it, not even the eclipse. Not even, Noel notes wistfully Hope meeting him for the first time.

_The time periods blur as much as his memories, but Noel presses on with Serah and Mog. There's a sensation in his chest every time he thinks of Hope but he pushes it down. Caius would've been disappointed in him, if he hadn't already been. __  
_  
They will not see each other again for another 390 years but Hope and Alyssa work around the clock to prepare for things before they time skip. Noel and Serah may have the luxury of going back but Hope doesn't, he elects a new Director in the time, sees to his father's assets and grave right beside his mother's.

_Alyssa and Hope are there when Noel and Serah land in 400 A.F. Noel is ecstatic to see them both alive and well. If Bodhum was lively compared to his village then Academia is monstrous, filled with sounds and smells he is unfamiliar with but it makes it worth while that Hope is there and that he's always a Time Gate away from Noel's grasp._

_And maybe, by then he'll have figured out Yeul's message._

Snow charges in when Alyssa attempts to give them the artifact. She is arrested and spends the rest of her unnatural life in jail. Both him and Noel are left alone. They are still reeling from the incident so Hope suggests a walk to cool off a bit.

_He understands the prophecy fully now that he's walking down the street with Hope._


End file.
